


What's Left

by suffolkgirl



Series: Season 3 Lee one-shots [6]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suffolkgirl/pseuds/suffolkgirl
Summary: When your world crumbles around you, the only thing left is to find yourself again.Follows Lee from the end of Maelstrom to the end of Crossroads Part 2.
Series: Season 3 Lee one-shots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787194
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an odd one. It turned out very stream-of-consciousness. Someone said it was like a character/episode analysis in fic form, and it's probably a good description. I didn't like a lot of Season 3, but I loved Lee's arc at the end, it brought back everything I loved most about his character in the early seasons, his struggles with his father's expectations, his willingness to take risks for his principles, his rebellious streak.
> 
> Part One is very angsty and focuses on his grief, but the later parts get more positive as he works out how to move on.

**One**

When Kara shot him, it didn’t hurt at first. The shock of the impact was too great. It knocked him breathless, dazed him, and he didn’t even realise he’d been shot until he looked down and saw the blood. It wasn’t until then that the pain hit him.

\----

For the same reason, the first few days after she dies are the easiest. 

He doesn’t really believe that it’s happened, and so he’s fine. He can deal with the tears in his father’s eyes, the anguish in Helo’s. He can comfort his stunned pilots and the distraught deck crew. He can watch Sam clearing out her locker. He can walk past the empty space where her viper should be without missing a step. He can make his speech at her memorial service without faltering once.

\----

After the service he goes to the memorial wall. To pin her photo next to Kat’s, just like she asked.

He pulls it out of his pocket. Takes a pin out of the wall. Lines the photo up neatly next to Kat’s.

Stares at her smiling face.

_She’s not coming back._

That’s when he looks down and realises he’s bleeding.

So much blood, flooding out of him. He didn’t realise he had so much to lose. 

He can’t pin the photo up. Not yet.

\----

He tries to patch up the wound, go on as normal. He’s not allowed to fall apart. He gave up that right when he walked away from Kara and went back to Dee.

He’d already made the decision to live his life without her. He can’t whine now it turns out that it’s a life without her entirely.

He can’t grieve for her openly. He won’t hurt Dee any more than he already has.

\----

Although it’s obvious that everyone knows he’s grieving anyway. The sudden hush when he enters a room, the looks of veiled curiosity and pity, as if they’re waiting for him to break.

Every word, every look makes him curl tighter into himself. Makes him hug his grief closer, bottle it deep inside. He doesn’t want to share the only remnant he has left of her.

He takes a harsh pleasure in the fact that none of the avid watchers seem to know quite what to say to him. He doesn’t fit into one of their neat little boxes of grief, like Sam the Widower or Helo the Best Friend or Adama the Surrogate Father. 

He and Kara were more than friends, not really family, never openly lovers…no-one seems to know how to define him or how to treat him, and part of him is glad of that, because he was never able to define his relationship with Kara himself, so why the hell should they? 

All he ever knew for certain was that what they had was messy and unpredictable and painful and all-consuming, defying all boundaries…

Well. All boundaries except this one.

\----

It’s easy keeping his guard up in public. He’s had years of practice, after all. It’s a challenge, a battle to fight, to stay composed, to do his job efficiently. Trying not to let them win by allowing them to see that every day, every patrol, is blurring into one.

That every time he gets into his viper he looks over at that empty space where hers used to be, expecting to see her grinning at him.

That every time he’s out in space he sees her viper exploding, over and over again.

_Trust me, Kara. I’ll fly your wing._

He reduces the number of CAPs he flies as far as he can. No-one seems to notice, or if they do, they don’t comment.

\----

Keeping his guard up in private…isn’t so easy. But he has to, because when he goes back to his quarters, Dee is there. 

Ever since this happened, she’s been the epitome of support. Caring and sympathetic and oh-so-considerate of his feelings.

Part of him wishes she wasn’t. Part of him wishes she would scream at him, slap him, tell him he has no business even thinking about Kara, no right to shed even a single tear over a woman he nearly wrecked their marriage for.

But that’s the irrational part of him talking, the part that led him into the affair with Kara in the first place, the part he’s tried so hard to suppress since Dee took him back.

He should be grateful for her understanding, and he is...but it means that he has to repay her for it by playing the part she expects him to play; the husband who is obviously grieved by the death of his old flame, but dealing with it. Who is certainly not going to let his grief affect their marriage, because he’s happy with his wife.

After all, that’s where he chose to be.

So he has to spend his evenings eating with her and talking about his day, and making plans for the next time they get a few days’ leave. Reassuring her that this incident is no more than a blip in their happy ever after.

Sometimes he can’t bear it, feels as if he’s going to explode. Is desperate for a few hours in which he can stop pretending, in which he can get drunk and stare at her photo, and let everything flood out.

He can’t. He’s not allowed to.

So he grits his teeth and keeps on pretending, and tells himself it will get easier, that one day the pretence will become reality.

\----

He can’t control his thoughts when he’s asleep. So every night he relives that final flight in his dreams, hears her last words to him over and over, watches her explode…

Fortunately he only wakes Dee up the first few nights, the ones where he starts up screaming. After that he knows what to expect, is able to muffle his distress so it doesn’t disturb her.

He can’t sleep again, afterwards. Doesn’t want to. Needs to get out of the stifling cabin and the accusing presence of his wife sleeping peacefully beside him.

\----

He’d go running, but that has too many memories attached. He goes to the gym instead, works himself into exhaustion, so he can go back to bed and sleep dreamlessly, so that Dee never realises he was gone.

On the worst nights, he goes straight to the punching bag. Pounds out all his despair and anger. Pretends it’s his own face under his fists. 

He can’t forgive himself. For encouraging her to go back out there, for telling her to trust him and then letting her down. It’s all his fault that she’s gone. If he’d listened to her, grounded her, she’d still be here.

He didn’t understand. He thought it was only a case of the jitters, that she just needed to get her confidence back. He didn’t realise how far gone, how desperate she was. That she was disturbed enough to throw her life away like that.

To kill herself.

At that point, it’s her face he imagines punching, as all his fury with her comes pouring out. For giving up like that. 

It’s not that he doesn’t understand. Gods, he of all people understands how easy it is to give up, how tempting…but this is her. Starbuck. She’s not supposed to give up. Not ever.

Why couldn’t she listen to him? Come back with him? He got through it, came back from that bleak place, even though he didn’t want to. She could have done the same. He could have helped her. 

What an idiotic delusion. 

Of course he couldn’t have helped her, any more than he could pull her back on that last flight. 

He’s not enough.

He’s never been enough for her, never been strong enough to save her from her demons, though he’s been struggling to as long as he’s known her. Why did he think that would change?

Now it’s too late. Because she can’t have her suicidal crisis quietly, can’t merely let go of a hole in her flightsuit and give them a chance to bring her back, to try again. 

No, this is Kara, and she can never do anything by halves. No, she has to be so frakking thorough about it and blow herself into frakking pieces…

…and to top it all, she tells him to let her go. 

He hates her for that. How the frak can she ask him to let her go? When their whole relationship is a testament to the fact that he never has been able to let her go. She can kill his brother, shoot him in the chest, break his heart, marry someone else, hurt him as no-one else ever has…and still he can’t let her go. Why the hell does she think death will make any difference?

His hands are always bleeding by the time he leaves the gym, but no-one ever comments on the grazes on his knuckles. Not even Dee.

\----

Bizarrely enough, he feels more comfortable with Sam than anyone else. Sam knows exactly how he felt about Kara, and so with him he doesn’t have to pretend. Sam feels her loss as much as he does. 

Gods, to think that he’d ever be grateful for Sam Anders.

So when Racetrack calls him to the hangar bay, he doesn’t hesitate to climb up on that viper and try to talk Sam down. Maybe he can help Sam even if he can’t help himself.

But he fails, and Sam falls. Just like Kara fell. What made him think he could help anyone?

As he helps Sam up, the other man’s eyes lock desperately on his. “She’s still alive, right?”

He wishes more than anything in the world that he could say yes. That he could comfort himself with the belief that somehow she survived, somehow she’ll come back as she always has before.

But he can’t, because she won’t. He saw her viper explode with his own eyes.

“She’s gone, Sam.” He forces the words out, and as he says them, the reality of them finally sinks in.

She’s gone. No changing that. He has to accept it. Find a way to move on, to live without her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

Someone, somewhere, must have finally commented to his father on his increasing abstraction. It was probably that last briefing that did it, mixing up the sectors, calling Racetrack by _her_ name…anyway, suddenly he’s pulled off being the CAG, assigned to security for Baltar’s lawyer of all frakking things.

It pisses him off. After all the effort he’s made to carry on as normal, keep on working, this is what he gets for it. A kick in the teeth. Makes him wonder why he even bothered to try.

His father thinks he can’t manage, needs a rest, and that makes him even angrier. Dad’s grieving as much as he is, but he doesn’t need a break, oh no. Because he’s strong enough to handle it. Not like his son, who’s too weak to cope.

“Helo will be stepping in as CAG until you can work this out.”

_Work this out?_ It makes him want to laugh. That’s exactly what he’s been doing, using the routines of his work to give him a purpose, to keep going. Now that’s all being taken away, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do without it. 

Maybe he hated it, maybe deep down he’s relieved not to have to fly, not to have to face that empty seat in the briefing room, but at least it gave him something to hang on to.

Work it out. Dad makes it sound so easy, as if all he needs is a good night’s sleep and a few days of light duties, and everything will be fine.

He has no frakking idea.

\----

His first sight of Romo Lampkin only confirms his disgust with this assignment. Who wears sunglasses on a spaceship, for frak’s sake?

It’s going to be a long week.

He can’t be hiding his irritation very well, because Lampkin picks up on it. He supposes vaguely that he should feel guilty for showing it so openly, but he doesn’t. Certainly not after being called king of the pilots.

Lampkin produces his grandfather’s book. Says he knew him.

It’s a long time since he thought about his grandfather, but when he does it’s always with affection. Grandad Joe always had time for him, took more of an interest than his father did in some ways. It wasn’t until after his death that he found out exactly what his grandfather had done for a living. He’d always found it hard to reconcile the defender of murderers with the grandfather he’d loved. Maybe Lampkin can tell him more, help him to understand.

The meeting with Baltar interests him despite himself. What game is Lampkin trying to play here? From what he’s seen of the man, he sincerely doubts he’s a fan of Baltar’s memoirs. Far too cynical.

One thing jars him, and that’s the way both Baltar and Lampkin accept that it won’t be a fair trial. That he’s already been proven guilty. He knows they’re right, but it irks him all the same. Everyone deserves a fair trial, even pond scum like Baltar, if they have even a pretence left of being a civilised society. But then, maybe that pretence disappeared a long time ago. His father and Roslin were prepared to assassinate Cain because she got in their way; they won’t hesitate to use a show trial to get rid of Baltar.

Why is he bothering to think about any of this anyway? Doesn’t matter what he thinks. He used to labour under the illusion that he could change things, but he knows better than that now.

But as the marines take Baltar back to his cell, he realises with a shock that for the first time since her death, he’s gone an hour without thinking about her.

\----

Lampkin wants to go to Colonial One.

“Can’t you fly me? You’re a pilot, aren’t you?”

That comment brings all his resentment at being grounded bubbling back to the surface. Nothing he can do about it though; his father’s given the order.

Lampkin won’t stop prodding him, pushing him.

“Do you want to stay here on the parade float for the bereaved? Everyone looking at you like you’re bleeding from the side?”

It’s exactly how he feels, and he hates that this stranger has been able to see that. He feels sliced open, exposed, and he can’t bear it, and…he loses control, slams Lampkin up against the wall.

The lawyer looks at him coolly over those damned sunglasses. “So there _is_ someone home.”

Maybe there is. He realises suddenly that this is the first time for days that he’s acted on his feelings, instead of bottling them up and trying to do what everyone else expects of him.

Well, frak that. He’s had enough of it. It’s so damn hard and no-one appreciates it anyway. 

They’ll go to Colonial One. Get the papers. Why the hell not? He’s not going to keep Lampkin from doing his job, whatever his father might hope.

After all, he’s only a frakking security guard.

\----

Turns out his father thinks he’s not capable of doing that either. Blames him for not spotting the bomb, even though the raptor had been checked over by the Chief before launching. Blames him for following Lampkin around, even though that’s what he’d ordered him to do. He wishes Dad would make up his damn mind.

“You’re a soldier. Live like one. Start acting like one.”

Lee’s heard this all before. _You’re weak…you’ve gone soft…_ w _ell, excuse me Dad, if I’m not perfect. If I’m not as strong as you are._

“She’s been gone two weeks. I didn’t realise the clock was running.” 

_Let’s cut the crap, Dad. I’m tired of dancing around what this is really about._

“Stop.” 

_Typical. Cut me off because you don’t want to talk about something, as always._ _Well, frak that._

“No, I’m sorry because maybe we’re just built differently.” _I can’t switch off my feelings at the drop of a hat._

“You stop.” He can tell that hit home. His father is seething now. “Don’t you dare quantify my loss. You think yours is deeper? Yours is greater?”

Part of him wants to scream _yes_. 

_Yes, my loss is greater. She was the woman I loved, the other half of myself, I’m not whole without her._

But he can’t form the words.

“You have no idea,” is all he can get out. “You have no frakking idea.”

His father has never had any idea about him and Kara. Is deliberately blind even, as he was that morning on New Caprica. 

He knows why. He knows that deep down, for his father, Kara will always, first and foremost, be Zak’s fiancée, the woman who loved his younger son, and while her marriage to Sam didn’t affect that, any relationship with him would. So Dad would rather not see it.

There’s no use trying to make him.

\----

Fine. If he’s no good for anything but looking after Lampkin, then he’ll look after Lampkin. More than that, he’ll do everything he can to help him. Chase up those files on his behalf. Get him in to interview the Six model.

Roslin and Tory are smooth and helpful, but he knows enough to see below the surface, and it angers him. Baltar’s got enough odds stacked against him without them doing everything they can to hinder his defence lawyer. And now his father has been chosen as a judge. Very impartial. This whole affair stinks to the skies.

\----

He’s looking forward to watching Lampkin at work. See how he deals with such a potentially hostile witness.

“Love. Precocious evolutionary move, fashioning Cylons to be capable of expressing it. I don’t know if it was engineered as a tactical imperative but it’s not for the faint-hearted, is it?”

It’s not the strategy he expected, and he’s not quite sure where Lampkin’s going with it., but he can see that the Cylon is responding, getting drawn into the discussion despite herself.

Then Lampkin starts to tell the story of the woman he loved. The woman he lost. And he forgets to watch, to analyse. 

“I thought if I could get over her that I could get over anything. I could endure. Conquer. Be a man. Stand up to any and all punishment. I clung to an empty, spinning bed for months and that…that is when I finally realized how much I loved her. If I needed all that strength? What was the point? I needed to be with her.”

The cell blurs around him as he’s lost in a wash of memories. All those months over New Caprica, trying to forget her, trying to accept she wasn’t his and never would be. The slow realisation when she came back to him that it was too late now, that he had other obligations he couldn’t abandon. The wrench of making that choice to keep to his marriage vows, stay with Dee, to turn away from her once and for all. And then….then losing her entirely, the bitter regret, the guilt…the hideous thought that maybe if he’d chosen her, maybe if they’d been together, she wouldn’t have got into the state she did, wouldn’t have chosen to die…

_I guess now that’s all we’ll ever be…_ he can still see the sadness in her eyes as she said it. _Oh Kara…_

If he can get over losing her, he can get over anything...but he’s not sure he has the strength.

Lampkin found it. He survived. Maybe he can too.

Then Lampkin produces the pen, and everything spins around. He’s torn between horror and admiration as he realises all of this has been an act to get the Six exactly where Romo Lampkin wants her. A show directed by a master puppeteer. 

It was all lies. His heart drops, as he realises how desperately he needed that story to be true.

\----

Everything Romo says about his grandfather strikes a chord. He can understand that; the need to know why people do what they do, to analyse and make sense of the world. So many times even the people closest to him baffle him, hurt him for reasons he can’t comprehend.

“What are you doing in my business?” Romo challenges.

He’s lost for a reply. Why _is_ he asking about all this? Why _is_ he getting involved?

He’s looking for something, but he’s not sure what. A diversion, maybe. A challenge. A purpose. He doesn’t know. He only knows that this whole business – the trial, the defence – interests him more than anything has for a long time. And that while he’s thinking about it, he forgets her.

“Romo, that story you told about the girl. The woman that you loved and getting over her. Was it true?” He tries to keep the urgency out of his voice, but knows he doesn’t succeed.

Romo pulls down his sunglasses slightly. Looks over them at him sombrely. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking.

“Yes,” he says finally, and leaves.

He’s not sure whether to believe it. Romo sounded sincere, but then he sounded sincere when telling the Six that Baltar sent her his pen.

But he needs to believe it, so he does.

\----

Of course, it’s in one of the few moments that he’s not with him that Romo gets himself blown up. No doubt Dad will blame him for that too.

He can’t help feeling guilty about it himself. He’d taken a break to see Dee, thought that an escort of two marines would fill his place adequately. Maybe he shouldn’t have.

So he delivers Romo’s bag to sick bay in person. As Romo guides him through the stolen contents, he can’t help being amused. He should probably disapprove, but what the hell. The guy’s not hurting anybody. He’s just fact-finding, in a twisted but logical way.

“So what did you take from me?”

The answer blindsides him. “I thought of taking the picture. The one you always carry. The girl. The pilot.” He can’t help putting his hand over the pocket where he carries it, checking it’s safe. “But I think you’ve had enough taken away from you already.”

There’s sympathy in Romo’s eyes, but not the pitying kind of sympathy that he’s jerked away from so often in the last two weeks. This sympathy is laced with understanding, and it’s the understanding that gets to him. Because no one on this ship really understands how he feels, not even – _especially_ not even – those closest to him, too wrapped up in emotions of their own.

But this stranger seems to understand, to see through him, and astonishingly it feels like a relief rather than an intrusion.

He can’t reply though. Can’t go that far. He looks away.

Thankfully, Romo doesn’t push any further. He changes the subject, back to the trial. Seals Baltar’s pen in an envelope, and dares him to help.

He looks at the outstretched envelope. Does he want to help? Does he want to get involved in this?

For a long, long time now he’s stuck rigidly to the business of his military role. Ignored issues that don’t strictly concern him. 

Now…the last few days, watching Romo…now another part of him is stirring, like a disused limb throbbing back to life. The part that used to care about things like this. That felt the need to get involved, to take a stand. The part that negotiated with Zarek on the Astral Queen, that mutinied against his father’s coup. 

Romo’s shown him that there are still other people out there who care about the system, about maintaining law and democracy and rights. He’s not alone.

He takes the envelope, and delivers it.

\----

Far from blaming him for Romo’s injuries, Dad congratulates him on finding the bomber. Reinstates him as CAG without him even having to ask. Even says he was wrong to ground him, a rare admission that renders him speechless for a moment.

The only trouble is…he doesn’t _want_ to be reinstated as CAG. A few days ago he would have jumped at it, but now…maybe Romo was right to call him a serial contrarian.

“You belong in your bird.”

_No I don’t_ . _You were right to ground me, Dad. I can’t function there properly at the moment, there are too many reminders of her. I need something else to focus on, something new, something different. Romo needs help with the defence now he’s injured, and I want to help him. This is something I can do, a way I can make a difference._

He tries to explain it. Maybe Dad will understand…

Vain hope. His father’s eyebrows lower in annoyance.

“You’re a CAG. Not a lawyer. Far from it.”

_I’m only CAG because of an accident of fate, because there was no-one else to do it. Is that all I can ever be, now? Stuck in the military, stuck in a position I’ve outgrown, where I can’t even hope for promotion because that would mean someone had to die?_

He tries to argue, but his father isn’t having any of it. It confuses him, remembering the conversation they had weeks before about his interest in law, when Roslin had wanted him involved in the trial. Dad had seemed to understand then, had even sent him the law books…

He jumps on that memory. “Why did you give me your books, then? You gave me your father’s law books.”

“I made a mistake.” Dad’s eyes flicker and he remembers how Dad and Grandad Joe never got on, how much Dad disapproved of his father’s work…

“Why? Why is it a mistake? Are you afraid that I’ll be like him?”

The expression in Dad’s eyes tells him he’s right, but as ever Dad stonewalls him.

“You’re a pilot.”

_Frak that. I’ve had enough of you telling me what to do, who to be. Of blindly following your expectations. Look where that got Zak._

“And with Zak gone and Kara gone you need someone to carry the flag, is that it?”

“You’re a pilot, and you’re my son.”

_No, I’m Lee. I’m not just an extension of you. I’m my own person, and I’m tired of denying it._

“Is that an order?”

He fights, but he doesn’t expect to win. Is amazed when his father backs down. Maybe Romo is right. Maybe his father is tired.

Walking out, he supposes he should feel some sympathy for him, but he doesn’t. He’s too angry for that.

Deep down he knows the real reason why he’s so angry with his father. Because if it wasn’t for him, for his voice over the comms ordering him to pull up, the thought of his grief at losing his last son, he wouldn’t have come back. 

He’d have followed her into the hard deck, and then he wouldn’t be here, having to learn how to live without her.

\----

But he _is_ here, and he has to try. Romo’s story has given him hope that he can do it, and the trial has given him something to focus on, and somehow that has finally made him able to pin her picture up on the wall, as he promised her.

It’s a step forward. A small one, but a start.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. Abandoning your duties to defend Baltar?”

Dee’s angrier about his decision than he had expected. Although he’s not sure how he’d expected her to react. He hadn’t really thought about it.

“I’m not abandoning anything. Helo’s doing a good job as CAG.”

“But being CAG is  _ your  _ job, Lee. Not sitting around in a courtroom.”

He searches for words to make her understand. “Lampkin needs help, and I can help him. Not many people are prepared to-”

“To help defend Baltar? I wonder why.” Her anger isn’t subsiding. “After what that man did, he shouldn’t even be having a trial.”

He stares at her, shocked. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?”

“Everyone’s entitled to a fair hearing, Dee. Even Baltar.”

He expects her to agree with that at least, but she doesn’t. 

She looks at him stonily and says, “So you’re not doing this just to piss off your father?”

“Of course not!” 

Not entirely, anyway. It’s more of a side bonus.

“He really doesn’t need this from you at the moment, Lee. He’s got enough to deal with.”

_ Yes, because his feelings are so much more important than anyone else’s _ . 

He doesn’t say that aloud, though. He tells her he has to go, he’s got a meeting with Lampkin. 

He’s had enough of this conversation.

\----

Something nags at him throughout the meeting in CIC. Something about the President isn’t quite right, and he’s not sure what. She often looks tired, but today there’s something about her expression that’s different, that rouses a memory he can’t quite place.

She’s more irritable than usual, snapping at Tigh when he questions her suggestion that they ask the Six for information on how the Cylons are tracking them. “Just do it. I have a feeling it might work.”

_ I have a feeling. _ He places the memory. His eyes fix on the thermos flask she’s been sipping from.

When she’s talking to his father, he takes the opportunity to smell it, and the smell brings back more memories. Galactica’s brig, and a joke about liquorice.

He bites his lip on a wave of sadness as he realises the implications. Gods, he hopes he’s wrong about this.

\----

The full implications don’t dawn until a few hours later, sitting in Lampkin’s quarters.

Tigh’s evidence has been effectively sabotaged. He’s still reeling from that. He had no idea about Ellen…gods, no wonder Tigh’s been falling apart ever since. Having to live with killing the woman you loved…

_ Like you did?  _

No. He won’t think about that now. He forces himself to concentrate on what Romo is saying, the need to throw doubt on Roslin’s testimony.

_ She hates me _ , Baltar rants.  _ Always has. And she’s a religious fanatic, thinking she’s a chosen leader… _

None of that will work. None of that makes her an unreliable witness. But if she’s taking chamalla again…

“You’re awfully quiet.” He looks up to see Romo’s eyes fixed on him, sharp as daggers. Damn it, the man really doesn’t miss much. Romo knows he’s got something.

He’s reluctant to say anything. Sure, he and Roslin aren’t as close as they used to be. She has his father as a confidant and military advisor now, and they’ve drifted apart. Truthfully, he’s never felt quite the same respect for her since he found out she’d proposed Cain’s assassination. But that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten their old friendship, and he’s not sure he’s ready to betray that for Gaius Baltar. 

On the other hand…on the other hand are all the arguments Romo is currently using to get him to talk. 

The accusation that he’s only doing this to stick it to his father doesn’t shake him. He knows why he’s doing this, and it’s not because of his father. It’s because he does believe in the system, in all those lovely things inscribed above courtroom doors.

Of course, it then logically follows, if he does believe in those principles, that he should share his suspicions with Romo. And Romo knows it as well as he does.

“You need to prove it to yourself or you’ll leave that courtroom out there knowing you kept a secret that could have saved that man’s miserable life. Now, unless I greatly misjudged your character, that’s not something Lee Adama wishes on his conscience.” He doesn’t. He’s got enough on his conscience already.

Romo goes in for the kill. “So what’ll it be, Major? Sit on the sidelines mouthing pieties or are you going to get in this trial and give us something we can use?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? 

He’s not a fool. He knows Romo brought him in on this trial for precisely this reason, because he’s so closely connected to the main players involved. Because he has inside information Romo can use.

But he also knows that using this piece of information will cost him his relationship with Roslin, and quite possibly his father as well.

So what does he choose? What does he put first? Personal loyalties or loyalty to the system?

Last time, on Colonial One, he chose the system, but it’s not so clear-cut to him now. The consequences of that last choice are still all too fresh in his mind. 

Speaking out will bring a high personal cost…but then so will keeping quiet. Can he live with himself if he stays silent and Baltar dies as a result?

It’s all a question of which price he is prepared to pay.

\----

He still hasn’t decided when he goes to see his father, using his suggestion about diverting the refinery ship as an excuse. Maybe he can get something out of Dad, some confirmation if his suspicions about Roslin are correct. Maybe he’s wrong, and there’s nothing to tell Romo after all.

He realises immediately that he hasn’t picked a good time. Something has obviously upset his father; he’s drinking, and his emotions are simmering closer to the surface than usual.

But he needs to know. So he asks how Roslin is, tries to sound casual. 

Dad snaps back that they can’t talk about the trial outside the courtroom, and there’s something about his tone, the look in his eyes, that makes all his instincts start screaming. His hunch was right, and his heart sinks.

His father is fuming. “As if I’d confide with you after what you did to Tigh-”

_ What? Tigh? _ He reels, taken off guard by the unexpected attack.  _ What does he mean? _

“You handed him over to Lampkin, told him about Ellen’s death-”

Hurt and astonishment renders him speechless for a moment. He remembers Lampkin asking him about it in the courtroom, could see how his father might have jumped to the wrong conclusion. He might have given him the benefit of the doubt, but then his father’s always been quick to judge where he’s concerned.

“I didn’t even know about Ellen.” 

His father barely seems to hear him, looks at him with total disgust.

“You’re a liar and a coward. Too gutless to attack Tigh yourself, so you pass the knife to Lampkin to stab him in the back. And for what? A traitorous piece of garbage who doesn’t even deserve a trial.”

After the first shock, he just stands there, letting the words sink into him. The blame, the ugly accusations. 

So now he knows what his father really thinks of him.

He could argue, could defend himself, but what’s the point? Dad won’t listen. He made up his mind a long time ago. He’s always found his eldest son a disappointment, and he is tired of struggling against that, tired of trying to live up to expectations he can never fulfil.

Not any more. 

He’s had enough. 

He waits until his father finally winds down, and then says simply: “Are you done?”

A scathing glare. “Yes.”

“Then so am I.” 

He takes off his wings, putting them down on the desk. He feels unnaturally calm, and his hands don’t shake as he does it. “I won’t serve under a man who questions my integrity.”

_ And if you believe everything you’ve just said about me, it shows you really don’t know me at all. _

His father’s face doesn’t shift from condemnation. “And I won’t have an officer under my command who doesn’t have any.” He tosses the wings contemptuously into a drawer.

It hurts. 

He takes a long breath, and that hurts too. 

He walks out, and the hatch clangs behind him irrevocably. No going back now.

Strangely, that thought brings a sense of relief.

\----

“How could you do it?” Dee seems too shocked for anger this time. “How could you just resign like that?”

“I’d had enough.” It’s all he can think of to say. All that matters, really.

“But you’re needed-”

“Not any more. There are other people now who can be CAG. They don’t need me.” 

“But, Lee…” Dee is looking utterly bewildered. “Lee, you can’t walk away from the fleet. You’re a soldier. That’s who you are.”

“That’s who I was. Now I’ll be something else.” He’s not sure what, but the prospect of finding out is both scary and exhilarating. The sense of freedom, of possibility, intoxicates him. “Find something else to fight for. There are more battlefields than the military, Dee.”

She looks even more confused, and he suddenly realises that she doesn’t see it that way. She didn’t drift into the service through a sense of obligation or family pressure. She’s like his father; the military was her choice, her vocation, and in her eyes no other profession measures up to it. She really can’t comprehend how he can turn away from it.

He tries to explain. “I’ve never really been completely comfortable in the fleet, Dee. I can do my job, but I don’t…”

_ Don’t what? _ He doesn’t know how to describe it.  _ Don’t care enough? Don’t believe in the rhetoric? Don’t think it’s the only way to live?  _

He remembers suddenly Tigh telling him he wasn’t fit to wear the uniform, and agreeing that maybe he never was. This is why.

He doesn’t know how to explain it in a way she’ll understand, and he can see Dee’s face hardening with disappointment.

“What’s happened to you, Lee? I feel like I don’t know you any more.” Her eyes are cold.

Again, he doesn’t know quite how to reply, because he doesn’t think he  _ has _ changed. This is always who he has been, deep down. He’s just been buried for a long time, hiding beneath the roles of Major Adama and Apollo, and now he’s climbing back out.

Maybe the truth is that she has never known him, not really. That she thought that Major Adama and Apollo were all there was to him.

He feels sorry for her, but not enough to change his course, to retreat back behind his masks.

He’s finally taking a stand, fighting for something he believes in, and it feels too right to stop.

\----

Back in the courtroom, he knows what the right choice is. If he’s going to fight for the system, he has to do it whole-heartedly. He can’t hold the information about Roslin back.

He’s also determined to do it in the right way, so he asks Lampkin if he can do the cross-examination himself. If he’s going to attack her credibility, reveal her secret, he’ll do it to her face. No matter what his father believes, he doesn’t stab people in the back.

He knew it was going to be hard, and it is. It’s not easy to look Roslin in the eye, but he does, because this has to be done. Baltar deserves an equal chance, a fair trial. So he keeps going, even when she appeals to their old friendship, calls him Captain Apollo.

“Do you remember that?”

Of course he remembers. But that was a different time and a different person, and he’s not Apollo any more. Apollo started to fade when the Blackbird exploded, and he vanished altogether when Starbuck died.

“I feel so sorry for you now.”

He knows she means it to wound, and it does, but he feels sorry for her too. If she remembers Captain Apollo, he remembers the newly-sworn President, and she’s disappeared as completely as Apollo has, her ideals equally tarnished. That President would not have ordered an assassination, or tried to steal an election, or had herself returned to office after New Caprica without even the pretence of consulting the people, or put on this show trial.

Regret swells up inside him and he’s suddenly had enough. He’s made his point; he’s not going to push her any farther.

Of course she stops him. She’s not going to let him off that easily. She makes him ask her why. Why she’s taking the chamalla.

It’s hard to form the question, because he knows the answer already.

Her cancer’s back.

He knows, but hearing her say it, the confirmation that it’s true, still stabs him in the heart. He meets her eyes, and remembers the first time she told him this news, on Colonial One.

This time he can’t even tell her how sorry he is, not after what he’s just done. Another bridge burnt.

Well, he knew there was going to be a cost.

\----

He gets back from the courtroom to find Dee packing.

It shouldn’t surprise him, but it does. He’d thought he could explain it to her. Her clear and logical mind is one of the things he’s always admired about her – surely that will help her understand?

He tries again. What he did to the President isn’t personal. He’s fighting for the system, for Baltar’s right to a free trial.

“Then the system is broken,” she snaps. “If the system lets that traitor go free, then it’s wrong, and we should be changing it, rebuilding it. Not defending it.”

He’s speechless for a moment. She doesn’t think the right to a free trial is worth defending? But what would she replace it with? With summary tribunals like the Circle?

“You don’t understand-”

She cuts him off. “Yes, Lee, I do understand. That’s why I’m leaving.”

He sees her mind is made up. She’s done with him, she’s finished, and he suddenly sees that maybe it’s not because she disagrees about the system, but because he’s stepped out of the role she assigned him, shattered the image she had of him, and she doesn’t want to deal with that. With the real him.

She leaves, and he’s left alone.

\----

Completely alone. 

He’s wrecked his relationships with his wife, his father, the President. He’s lost his job. Probably lost every friend he had on Galactica after what he did in court today. 

It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. 

He might be at odds with everyone else, but he’s at peace with himself. He doesn’t regret what he did, isn’t ashamed of his decisions. 

For the first time in a long time, he feels like Lee Adama again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

It’s odd, not wearing a uniform. Like looking at a stranger in the mirror, wearing the one suit he owns, a dead man’s cast-off. He bought it for his wedding, because Dee didn’t want them to wear uniforms for the ceremony. No doubt the fact he was wearing it in court added to her anger yesterday.

There’s a sense of freedom, too, in shedding the uniform. A renewal of that feeling of possibility, that he can be whoever he wants to be now. Live his life as he chooses.

He leaves his quarters, wondering how long he’ll keep them now Dee’s left him. His father will probably seize the opportunity to kick him off Galactica, remove the offensive sight of his presence.

He supposes he should worry about where he’s going to go, but he doesn’t have the energy. He’ll find somewhere.

No-one speaks to him as he walks through the corridors to Romo’s quarters. Looks like the news about Roslin has gone round the grapevine then. He finds himself on the receiving end of several hostile glances.

He shrugs it off. It’s better than it was before. He’d rather be despised than pitied.

\----

He tries to push all the turmoil of the previous day aside, to focus on the trial. Baltar’s confidence pisses the hell out of him. Can’t he see that their tactical victories are only turning the judges against them? That it doesn’t matter how little evidence there is to support the charges when everyone in the courtroom hates him, including the judges.

“Even my father said you were a traitorous piece of garbage that didn’t deserve a trial.”

He knows he’s made a mistake even before he finishes the sentence, even as Romo jumps on it.

He tries a distraction, goes back to the idea of a mistrial. Romo goes along with it, but he’s not fooled. He curses himself inwardly, afraid of what Romo might do with the information. 

\----

He doesn’t expect what happens, though. Even when Romo sends him a look that’s almost apologetic as he gets up to ask for a mistrial.

The grounds for a mistrial? One of the judges has already pre-judged the defendant.

His heart freezes, because he knows, he just knows, what Romo’s next move is going to be, although he can barely believe it.

“I call Mr Lee Adama to the stand.”

Damn him. 

No escape from the witness stand, but he’s fuming as he walks over. If Romo thinks he can manipulate him like this, he’s got another think coming.

He won’t testify against his father in public. That’s one step he won’t take, however angry he is with him. He wouldn’t speak out publicly against Dad when Zarek and Roslin wanted him to, and he’s certainly not doing it now.

He meets Romo’s questions with stony silence. Frak him. Frak this whole farce of a trial.

Romo keeps pushing. “You swore an oath as an officer of the court. If you don’t answer the question you hold the entire system of justice-”

And he snaps.

“What frakking system?”

He hears the chief judge protesting, but he doesn’t care. He’s had enough. Enough of this farce of a trial, this pretence that the justice system still exists, that their whole framework of ethics and values didn’t go up in flames when the Colonies did.

He’s vaguely aware of Romo’s sharpened attention, of the glint of a smile beneath those sunglasses as he presses him on.

“Why do you believe the defendant, Gaius Baltar, deserves to be acquitted?”

What’s the point of asking that? They’re not going to acquit him. Everyone wants Baltar dead, because they want someone to blame.

He doesn’t intend to say it aloud, but Romo keeps pushing him, and somehow it all comes tumbling out. Everything that bugs him about this whole trial. That there is no system any more, they’re just making up the rules to suit themselves. Forgiving people because they’re needed and they can’t afford not to. Using Baltar as a scapegoat to absolve their collective guilt about New Caprica.

Including his own. Because he wanted to leave them all to the Cylons. He thought then that he was making a purely logical decision, based on the military facts, but now he’s not so sure. Now he wonders how much was driven by hatred, by the need to pay her back. He can’t forgive himself for that, but he’ll accept his guilt and his shame. He won’t hide from it by blaming Baltar.

When he winds down he feels as exhausted as if he’s flown a ten hour CAP or run five laps of the ship, but it’s a good exhaustion. He feels purged by finally letting it all out. It’s worth having said it all, even if it’s for nothing, even if his words have no effect.

\----

He fully expects that to be the case, but it isn’t. The judges listen. Baltar is acquitted.

Maybe their old values aren’t completely lost after all.

The chief judge seems to believe that.  _ “ _ Like everything human, justice is imperfect. It’s flawed. But it’s those very imperfections that separate us from the machines. And maybe even makes us a species worth saving.”

Maybe she’s right. It’s certainly something worth fighting for.

Today he did. And against all the odds, he won.

\----

“Romo? Did you know what was going to happen when you put me on the stand?”

Unnecessary question, really. He knows the answer, but he wonders if Romo will admit to it.

Romo smiles. “I knew you were an honest man. Much unlike your grandfather.”

No, he’s not like his grandfather. He knows that now. He could never have pulled off what Romo did in that trial; he’s not sneaky enough. Too honest, as Romo said.

He’s spent a lot of his life trying to be like his father, and the last week wondering if he can be like his grandfather. 

Now he understands that he’s not like either of them. Not entirely. He’s someone different. He’s himself, he’s Lee, and he knows now what that means.

He feels the urge to thank Romo for helping him realise that, although he knows Romo doesn’t deserve it. Everything Romo did was for his own ends, to win the trial, and any benefit to him was coincidental.

He’s still grateful. 

\----

He walks through the ship, loosening his tie. Despite the fact that he has no job, no home, and no idea what he’s going to do next, he feels strangely triumphant.

Today he took a stand, and it made a difference. People listened. They upheld the system, and his belief in it. The exhilaration of that isn’t going to wear off for a long time.

He’ll figure out what to do next. He’s confident of it. Somewhere in the middle of all this, he’s found himself again. He knows who Lee Adama is and what he stands for, with a certainty he thought he’d lost forever.

This is the first day of the rest of his life.

\----

The silence is shattered by the call to condition one. Crewmen race past him to get to their stations. He watches them for a moment, and then makes a decision. Runs to his quarters to get his flightsuit.

So what if he’s not officially a pilot any more? He’s obviously needed, and he’s going to help. He knows now who Lee Adama is, and Lee Adama isn’t someone who stands aside and lets petty rules stop him from doing what needs to be done.

He is braced for someone to stop him on the flight deck, but no-one does. Everyone’s preoccupied, and it’s only a few days since he was still CAG; no-one’s quite grasped yet that he’s now a civilian. 

When he gets into his viper, for the first time he doesn’t look over at that empty space on the deck. For the first time, as he emerges from the launch tubes, he doesn’t expect to see her hovering at his wing, or hear her voice over the comms.

When he stares out into the black he doesn’t see her viper exploding.

He starts to hope that maybe he can find this part of himself again as well. That maybe he can learn to be Apollo without Starbuck after all.

\----

But as it turns out, he doesn’t have to.


End file.
